1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a POS (Point Of Sale) terminal for allowing a plurality of customers to pay a bill easily on a split-the-bill settlement basis.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a plurality of persons dine at a restaurant, for example, and split the total bill, it has been the general practice for them to declare their meals for payment and then for the server to calculate and charge their shares for the respective menu items.
POS terminals that have been used in restaurants in recent years are capable of displaying all menu items ordered by a plurality of customers and respective prices for the ordered items. According to such a POS terminal, when the server selects one at a time of the displayed menu items, the selected menu item and its price are displayed for the corresponding customer to pay. When the payment is made, the settled menu item is deleted from the displayed menu items, and the other menu items and their prices to be settled are displayed for the remaining customers to pay. In this manner, the customers pay their shares on a split-the-bill settlement basis. Such conventional split-the-bill settlement processes are disclosed in JP-1982-202157U, JP-1988-234353A, and JP-1995-320160A.
However, when the server is to calculate and charge the shares of the customers for their respective menu items based on the declared meals, the server needs to enter the amount of money corresponding to each of the menu items into the POS terminal for processing each of the customers. According to the processes disclosed in the above patent documents, since the server has to calculate the shares of the customers successively, if one of the customers has made a mistake in selecting a menu item, then the server cannot recognize the mistake until the server calculates the share of the last customer in the series of calculations.